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, 1999

When Castro took over Cuba in the 1950s, Havana’s nightlife shifted as clubs and casinos were closed down, leading to certain traditional step-based genres like son, bolero, and danzón to decline. A few decades later, prominent American musician Ry Cooder travelled to Cuba with his friend documentarian Wim Wenders, to pay homage to traditional Cuban music in an album and its respective documentary. Wenders weaves in illuminating interviews and shots of Cuba today in between the band’s Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall performances, with a certain intuition that makes each song feel like a triumph. While the documentary does focus more on Cooder, Buena Vista Social Club is a delight to watch, even with its 90s digital grain.

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Ibrahim Ferrer, Joachim Cooder, Omara Portuondo, Ry Cooder

Director: Wim Wenders

Rating: G

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, 2017

After being held captive his whole life, a man sets out to finish the only show he's ever seen. Thoughtfully written with a creative cast; it is not a film you would expect to laugh at and enjoy so thoroughly with such an unconventionally dark premise. However, it is a hilarious, wholesome, and loving film that will leave your heart feeling warm.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Alexa Demie, Andy Samberg, Angella Joy, Beck Bennett, Chance Crimin, Chris Provost, Claire Danes, Gerry Garcia, Greg Kinnear, James Anthony Green, Jane Adams, John Forker, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Joseph Paul Branca, Kami Christiansen, Kate Lyn Sheil, Kim Fischer, Kyle Mooney, Marilyn Miller, Mark Hamill, Matt Walsh, Michaela Watkins, Nick Rutherford, Nikolas Mikkelsen, Ryan Simpkins, Teresa Duran-Norvick, Tim Heidecker, Yvonne D Bennett

Director: Dave McCary

Rating: PG-13

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, 2020

This stirring peek into the final days of a shuttering Las Vegas dive might be one of the finest odes to American bar culture yet. It also serves as a powerful portrait of a particular moment deep into the disastrous Trump years, yet right before the pandemic struck.

Directors Bill and Turner Ross capture the good, bad, and ugly, allowing conversations to unfold naturally. The colorful hues of the bar create a cinematic canvas for the patrons, who awash with booze and nostalgia, uncertainty, fear, and love, spend their last day together. If there was ever a film for those who miss the rough and tumble nightlife of the pre-Covid world, this is it. 

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Actor: Michael Martin, Shay Walker

Director: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross

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, 2024

Blind Date Book Club packs many times unnatural mouthfuls of dialogue and writing, but at the same time conveys an incredibly wholesome, adorable earnestness at its core. The movie has such a pure meet cute, thanks to the chemistry of Meg Tompkins (Erin Krakow) and Graham Sterling (Robert Buckley), which is all it really needed to succeed. Writing critique scenes and author characters almost always come with a mild cringe—always seems like the lines are aimed at the work itself, or a tool for deflection—but when the world around it is wrapped in a nostalgic young love à la Flipped, that stuff makes it even better. It's light fun, and it stays tonally the same throughout, but it's so unapologetically sweet you've got to respect it.

Genre: Romance, TV Movie

Actor: Chiara Guzzo, Daniel Bacon, Erin Krakow, Faith Wright, Glynis Davies, Hilary Jardine, Johannah Newmarch, Paolina van Kleef, Robert Buckley, Rochelle Greenwood

Director: Peter Benson

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, 2024

Babes tells the story of Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), codependent best friends who are forced to reevaluate their relationship when Eden finally joins Dawn in becoming a mother. While Eden learns how to be more mature and independent, Dawn struggles to feel like herself again after two exhausting pregnancies. Burdened by these personal problems, they evaluate the boundaries of their friendship and ask themselves, what do they owe each other? It sounds like heavy stuff, but the script—co-written by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz—has an uncanny ability to make even the most serious parts of the film feather-light. Glazer and Buteau are fiercely funny, charming, lovable, and relatable, and everything comes together seamlessly with Pamela Adlon, who makes her directorial debut with Babes, on the helm. Fans of Glazer’s Broad City and Buteau’s Survival of the Thickest will find much to laugh (and cry) at here.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Darren Criss, Hasan Minhaj, Holly Chou, Ilana Glazer, John Carroll Lynch, Katy Grenfell, Keith Lucas, Kenneth Lucas, Mario Polit, Michelle Buteau, Oliver Platt, Paul Borghese, Rosa Gilmore, Sandra Bernhard, Shola Adewusi, Stephan James, Susanna Guzman, Whoopi Goldberg

Director: Pamela Adlon

Rating: R

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, 2023

Ashkal takes an audaciously hybrid approach to genre: it’s part-noir, part-supernatural thriller, and full political allegory. The investigation at the center of this slow-burn Tunisian police procedural is a gripping one, as burnt naked bodies keep turning up in abandoned construction sites in Tunis with no trace of a struggle or even a combustible on them. In post-revolution Tunisia, the deaths are an uncomfortable reminder of recent history: it was a young Tunisian man’s self-immolation that sparked the Arab Spring, after all.

The revolution’s complicated legacy looms over the film, as we watch the country’s Truth and Dignity Commission begin its work of uncovering the former government’s corruption and abuses. Ashkal’s two protagonists — the young Fatma (Fatma Oussaifi) and her more seasoned police partner Batal (Mohamed Grayaa) — find themselves on opposite sides of that political divide, he having been implicated in the abuses of power that are now being investigated by Fatma’s father. There are fascinating elements at play here, and the results of Ashkal’s ambitious genre experiment are mostly inspired. Much of the film’s energies are spent on building a paranoid atmosphere — efforts that can, at times, frustratingly slacken the tension — but its fantastical touches tauten things up enough to make it a haunting political commentary in the end.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: Aymen Ben Hmida, Mohamed Grayaâ

Director: Youssef Chebbi

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, 2023

That this film, an adaptation of a beloved classic and girlhood staple for 50 years and counting, is able to retain the same power, charm, and wisdom as the source material by Judy Blume is impressive in and of itself. 

Director Kelly Fremon Craig (Edge of Seventeen) turns the must-read novel into a must-see film, as urgent and relevant as ever in its frank portrayal of feminine woes and joys. Buying your first bra, getting your first period, losing a friend, doubting your faith, seeing—really seeing—your family for the first time, and knowing in your heart what you stand for...these are some of the thorny requisites of womanhood, and Craig navigates them with a bittersweet ease that never feels pandering nor patronizing. Like the book, the film honors this young person's big feelings by centering them in a sprawling story that involves other characters, who are just as fleshed-out as the lead. Rachel McAdams deserves special mention for turning in a sweetly nuanced performance as Margaret's mother Barbara, an artist attempting to balance her domestic role with her career goals. 

The film may be 50 years in the making, but it tells a timeless tale that will continue to hold the hands of teenage girls for generations to come.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Abby Ryder Fortson, Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, Benny Safdie, Echo Kellum, Eden Lee, Elle Graham, Ethan McDowell, Gary Houston, George Cooper, Holli Saperstein, JeCobi Swain, Jim France, Johnny Land, Judy Blume, Kate MacCluggage, Kathy Bates, Mia Dillon, Rachel McAdams, Sloane Warren, Wilbur Fitzgerald

Director: Kelly Fremon Craig

Rating: PG-13

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, 2018

There are far too many things that are worse in life than being on a journey with Danish super talent Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, The Hunt).

And that is what this 98-minute movie is: an almost one-actor movie set in the arctic. Mikkelsen plays a man trying to survive a plane crash, which at some point becomes about deciding whether to embark on a dangerous journey or stay in the plane rubble and risk a slow death.

It’s an extremely well-acted movie with nail-biting suspense. Bonus fact: it received a 10-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes film festival this year.

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Joe Penna, Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, Tintrinai Thikhasuk

Director: Joe Penna

Rating: PG-13

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, 2009

A movie about a 16 year old girl who gets involved with an older more sophisticated man and how the relationship changes her life. Carey Mulligan's performance is nothing short of perfect, inevitably making herself the center of the movie. The coming-of-age story is also quite exceptional, and conveys  impressive load and variety of emotions. An Education is one of those movies that make you live an experience you haven't lived yourself, but because it is so exquisitely and realistically done, the character's problems and joys will feel like your own.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Alfred Molina, Amanda Fairbank-Hynes, Bel Parker, Cara Seymour, Carey Mulligan, Connor Catchpole, Dominic Cooper, Ellie Kendrick, Emma Thompson, James Norton, Kate Duchêne, Matthew Beard, Nick Sampson, Olivia Williams, Peter Sarsgaard, Rosamund Pike, Sally Hawkins, William Melling

Director: Lone Scherfig

Rating: PG-13

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, 2003

Having an ordinary life isn't a bad thing, but it can feel like a huge disappointment, hearing of other people and characters having extraordinary lives. However, when Harvey Pekar started writing down that ordinary life, his life became… still quite ordinary, but at least with an outlet through his autobiographical comic book American Splendor. That being said, his biopic isn't quite ordinary, transforming Pekar’s eccentric musings into fourth-wall-breaking comic book panels, vignettes, and documentary-esque work, shifting between Pekar animated, acted by Paul Giamatti, and voiced occasionally by Pekar himself. And like his work, American Splendor resonates with the ordinary viewer, who, like him, just wants to try to make the best of life. It's pretty cool for someone that called himself a nobody.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Daniel Tay, Donal Logue, Earl Billings, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Hope Davis, James McCaffrey, James Urbaniak, Josh Hutcherson, Judah Friedlander, Madylin Sweeten, Maggie Moore, Molly Shannon, Paul Giamatti, Rae Sunshine Lee

Director: Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman

Rating: R

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, 2023

The emotional sterility of modern life comes under the microscope of this understated Korean drama in which a young woman who has built self-preserving walls around her lonely existence begins to wonder if the trade-off is worth it. Outside of the soul-sucking call center job at which Jina (Gong Seung-Yeon) excels, her interactions with others are purely parasocial: she streams mukbangs on her phone as she eats alone, wakes up to the blare of her always-on TV, and checks in on her aging father via the security camera she’s surreptitiously installed in his home. When she reluctantly agrees to train the chatty, warm newbie (Jeong Da-eun) at work, Jina is confronted with a direct challenge to her aloofness, but the provocation is easily ignored until a similarly withdrawn neighbor is discovered long after his death.

This triggers a quarter-life crisis for Jina that’s predictably resolved, but Aloners transcends the neatness of this arc thanks to its quietly persistent challenging of the instinct to contort oneself to fit an inhumane world. Hong Sung-eun’s thoughtful first-time direction and Gong’s nuanced performance as a young woman waking up to the creeping dehumanization of herself make Aloners a genuinely thought-provoking reflection on 21st-century life.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Ahn Jeong-bin, Geum Hae-na, Geum Hannah, Gong Seung-yeon, Jeong Da-eun, Ju Seok-tae, Kim Hae-na, Kwak Min-kyu, Park Jeong-hak, Seo Hyun-woo

Director: Hong Sung-eun

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, 2015

A War (Krigen) is a Danish war drama that focuses on Commander Claus Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) as he leads a company of soldiers in modern day Afghanistan, while his wife at home in Denmark struggles to care for their three children. During a mission to rescue a family from Taliban threat, Claus’ unit is overcome by enemy fire, forcing him to make a dramatic decision that has a complicated effect upon himself, his fellow soldiers, and his family back home. A War is a tense yet thoroughly involving drama that offers a profound example of moral ambiguity and the repercussions of warfare. The acting and direction are utterly superb across the board—another enthralling and superbly humanistic affair from Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm (A Hijacking).

Genre: Drama, War

Actor: Alex Høgh Andersen, Charlotte Munck, Dar Salim, Dulfi Al-Jabouri, Petrine Agger, Pilou Asbæk, Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling, Søren Malling, Tuva Novotny

Director: Tobias Lindholm

Rating: R

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